Asheville, North Carolina, April 26, 2013
The nonprofit Quilt Alliance will present a one-day educational conference sponsored by Handi Quilter, Inc. called Not Fade Away: Sharing Quilt Stories in the Digital Age on Saturday, July 20 at Floris United Methodist Church in Herndon, Virginia. The conference is designed to demonstrate the Alliance's oral history projects and share techniques for documenting and sharing quilts using digital technologies and social media.
This event is directed to anybody who makes, collects, or appreciates quilts, both modern and vintage. The Alliance offers resources to help every quilt owner and maker document her or his own collection, so the quilts continue to carry their stories into the future.
Conference admission is $45 for Quilt Alliance members, $55 for non-members (annual membership starts at $25/year). Admission includes a coffee reception at registration, a boxed lunch, Quilt Alliance USB drive full of take-home resources, and one-day admission to Sacred Threads, an international exhibition of quilts exploring themes of spirituality, joy, inspiration, peace/brotherhood, grief and healing.  | | Janneken Smucker |
Janneken Smucker will give the keynote address "Quilt Stories/Storied Quilts" about how and why people who love quilts-the makers, the owners, the users, the preservers-continually layer new meaning onto these objects. Smucker is assistant professor of history at West Chester University and author of the forthcoming book, Amish Quilts: Crafting an American Icon. She serves as board secretary of the Quilt Alliance. Since 2001 she has volunteered with the Alliance's Quilters' S.O.S. -- Save Our Stories (Q.S.O.S.) oral history project, interviewing quiltmakers at galleries, quilt shows, and in their homes and studios.  | | Jinny Beyer |
During the demonstration portion of the event, pioneering fabric designer and award-winning quilter Jinny Beyer will be interviewed for the Q.S.O.S. project by Luana Rubin, veteran quilt world designer, writer and entrepreneur. Volunteers all over the United States capture the stories of quilts and their makers by using the simple Q.S.O.S. interview protocol.
The Alliance's newest oral history project, Go Tell It at the Quilt Show, will also be demonstrated. Quiltmakers whose work will appear in the Sacred Threads Exhibition will be interviewed for this short-format video documentation project during the lunch break.
Conference attendees will choose two workshops from the following topics:
1. Self-Publishing for Quilters with Kyra Hicks.
2. Social Media for Quilters with Pat Sloan and Luana Rubin.
3. Taking Better Photos of Your Quilts with Meg Cox.
4. Label It. Today! with Leslie Tucker Jenison and Michele Muska.
5. Q.S.O.S. Volunteer Boot Camp with Pauline Macaulay and Emma Parker.
A panel discussion titled "Patching the Holes: Curators Reveal How They Solve the Mysteries of Unlabeled Quilts and What They Wish Every Quilt Could Tell Them" will round out the conference. Prominent textile curators Nancy Bavor, Marin Hanson, Suzanne McDowell and Mary Worrall will take us behind the scenes to explain the challenges of working with unlabeled quilts and unknown histories. Each panelist will briefly discuss her current work, and a Q & A session will follow.
 The sponsor for the Not Fade Away conference is Handi Quilter, Inc., and development of the event was made possible by support from the Robert and Ardis James Foundation. Seating for the conference is limited so early registration is encouraged. Not Fade Away conference details and online registration can be found on the Quilt Alliance website here: www.allianceforamericanquilts.org/support/events.php. |
